JARED REMY WAS THE KING of second chances. A review of hundreds of pages of court files and police records revealed accounts that he terrorized five different girlfriends starting when he was 17, and that courts repeatedly let him off with little more than probation and his promise to stay out of trouble. He rarely did.

Now 35, Remy has been arrested or brought to court as the defendant in 20 different criminal cases, mostly for charges of violence against, or intimidation of, women, including his pending case for allegedly murdering his girlfriend, Jennifer Martel, in Waltham last August.

Remy has been found guilty just twice, and both times his lawyer persuaded a judge to let him walk with a suspended sentence, defying the wishes of prosecutors.

Often he benefited from victims who did not want to testify, whether from fear or forgiveness, leading prosecutors to drop the case. But even when cases seemed airtight, judges often rewarded Remy with a nearly free pass — temporary probation without the stain of a guilty finding. Most offenders are lucky to get two such reprieves. He got six.

And on more than 10 occasions while already serving probation or waiting for an earlier case to be resolved, Remy was arrested again on new charges or otherwise ran afoul of the law — a pattern of incorrigibility that would ordinarily get a person locked up.